


Still

by unicornsandbutane



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Child Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:26:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8274499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicornsandbutane/pseuds/unicornsandbutane
Summary: The night Kylo Ren was born.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Huxloween prompt: Dolls

They had been so young when it had happened, but then, so was he. They were young and they were sleeping, defenceless and undefended, and he had been awake, and unguarded, and the voice had filled that hole in his mind, days or hours or weeks ago. It had left seeds that took root, or perhaps, spores that spread. And when he rose, silently, from the bedclothes, perhaps he didn’t feel so young. Hadn’t they always said he excelled beyond his years?

The weapon was cold and heavy in his hand. He’d make a better one, when he could, but this one would do. This one would do what he needed of it.

They were young. They lay curled in their beds, some still unused to being away from their parents, feeling the distance like a physical tug on their heartstrings. He knew, because he could hear them, hear all of their thoughts, hear their petty insults even when they chose not to say them aloud. And he could feel their pain, all of it, in wakefulness and in sleep, for even their nightmares flowed through him. He’d never slept a restful night in his life.

How unfair, he thought, approaching the first sleeping body. This one slept peacefully, curled around a fabric doll. Its black shiny eyes stared, its stitched grin mocked. He felt watched even as the others slept. Had he ever been alone? Had he ever been allowed a moment of quiet?

He raised his weapon. He would have to be quick, so as not to wake the others. The doll’s bead eyes caught the saber’s light as it ignited, flashed as he brought it down.

There would be no blood, no screaming. Each hit was precise as he moved from bedroll to bedroll, a life extinguished like snuffing out a candle. This one had a porcelain doll. That one, a stuffed tauntaun.

If he was weak he would tell himself he was sparing them, saving them from a life under the rule of the Jedi Code. If he was weaker still he would tell himself he’d been made to do it, that the voice had crept into his mind his muscles his hands and forced him. That his Master’s strings had pulled him. But he knew this wasn’t true. He’d done it all on his own.

Soon Luke would feel it, the smothering of these lights in the darkness. Before he did, there was still one more. One more light, flickering, guttering, weak, which would go dark before the night was done.

He reached inside himself, and found Ben Solo. He reached inside, and killed the light.

Ben Solo died long ago, in that room, with all the other younglings lying lifeless and still as dolls. Before Luke awakened, Kylo ran, feet flying over rough ground and damp grasses, stood under the wide black sky, and for once, there was silence.

He reached for the strings that guided his fate, and called upon his Master.


End file.
